Have you ever had a conversation with someone where you are both recalling a shared event or experience and realised that your memories of what took place or happened are quite different?

I was chatting with a girl friend recently and we were reminiscing about a social event we had both attended and yet listening to her recall it was obvious that her memories of who we met and what was discussed and the entire evening were vastly different. Her recall was quite vivid with regard to a certain person we had been introduced to. She was able to remember his name (never a strong point for me in any situation!) what he looked like, his clothes, his manner, what had been talked about, and a number of details that I struggled to have any recall on.

The difference was not that my memory is inferior to hers. The difference is in the way we both laid down the memories of that event in our brains.

So what does make us remember some things and not others and how can two people at the same function have such vastly different recall?

Let’s start with how memories are formed. We are continuously bombarded with sensory input into our brain. Much of this is subconscious. Our brain then quickly decides whether this information is relevant or not in milliseconds. If deemed relevant, then it stays for up to one minute in our short term memory enabling us to remember things such as telephone numbers before typing them into our address books or mobile phones.

If however the brain decides to retain this information for longer, it is then stored as long term memory. We can do this through repetition ie repeating the telephone number to ourselves several times or associating the number to other information.

How strong that memory will be can be affected by a number of variables.

Firstly the amount of attention or concentration we give to the event. I know that if I’m talking to my husband and I’m pretty sure he’s not listening then sure as eggs if I then challenge him about what I may have just said. He wouldn’t have any idea!

Secondly emotion. Events associated with strong emotion are likely to be remembered much more easily and with more detail. Can you remember where you were and what you were doing on September 11^th 2001when the twin towers were brought down? What about October 15^th or November 6^th of the same year? If there was no particular emotion attached to an event on those other days, chances are you won’t remember.

Thirdly sensory input of the event. If the memory is associated with a particular location such as a beach side resort you may remember the details of the sky being bright blue and cloudless, the aromas of exotic cooking, the sound of  boats chugging across the water and the touch of warm sand on your skin. Combined together it paints a vivid picture for the memory banks.

Fourthly, do we have an interest or need to know that piece of information? My friend was clearly quite taken with her new friend and her interest allowed her to retain the details of the event. Whereas I had not.

Similarly for school students studying different subject, there is a strong motivation or need to know, so information on English, Maths and History is stored in long term memory, ready to be recalled (hopefully!) on the day of the exam.

So next time you are talking with someone about a shared event, be aware that your experiences may be vastly different, depending on whether you were paying attention, emotionally involved to the event,  conscious of other things at the time around you and whether it was relevant to you individually.

That’s the beauty of our brains. We all like to do things differently for own unique experiences.

How many times does it happen that we lose our keys?
First of all you realise they are not in the place they normally are, and then (as it usually seems to occur when you in a hurry to get to an appointment or something) you rummage quickly through the other “likely” places where they often get put down.

Not there either?
OK, now it’s time to go backwards using your memory. When do you know you definitely last had them and what did you do after that ?
This process will then hopefully lead to where the missing keys were inadvertently put.

Not an uncommon scenario in many households.
But is forgetting where we put down our keys or forgetting people’s names or trying to think why we have walked into the garage to look for something, a sign of something more sinister happening?

Could you be showing early cognitive impairment which could lead to Alzheimer’s disease?

We are in a rapidly ageing population where sadly the reality is, that for those of us now enjoying a longer lifespan, 10% of us will have dementia by the age of 65 years of age and 40-45% of us by the time we are 85 years old.
Seeing as we are now expected to live to between 79 and 85 years on average, that is a pretty scary scenario. So, if we live to our full lifespan, we have nearly a 50% chance of having dementia.

Some Health Organisations are now predicting that by 2040, neurodegenerative diseases will account for more deaths than cancer.

The good news is that losing your keys does not necessarily imply a neurodegenerative problem on it’s own.
We are also now learning more and more about the brain’s amazing capacity to maintain itself and allow us to continue to learn and retain new memories throughout our lives.
Cognitive Reserve is a term that relates to our brain’s ability to preserve itself against neuronal loss and loss of function.
Some of the things we now know in regard to this include brain size, number of neurons, the level of education achieved and the amount of continued learning, our lifestyle and the effect of stress.

In a nutshell: the larger our brain the greater we are protected from dementia. The number of neurons we have working will also influence how we continue to function. Studies have shown that people who have obtained a higher level of education and those who are life long learners are afforded a certain level of protection.
How we live in terms of lifestyle, diet, exercise, smoking and drinking plays an important role in maintaining cognitive reserve as does avoiding stress.

Stress kills brain cells!
So, the next time you can’t find your keys, don’t stress. Because you want to keep those neurons working to help you find them the next time it happens.

Jenny provides coaching services for those ready to step up and  want to  produce positive change in their lives. Having a coach provides support and accountability and makes it easy for you to become really clear on exactly what your goals and objectives are. Having gained that clarity the coaching program allows you to focus on achieving those goals and objectives over a predetermined timeframe.

The outcome is that you are able to achieve what you set to to achieve and in a much shorter time frame than you would have first imagined!

Jenny has been trained in Results methodology coaching which is brain based and revolves about improving the way the think to get the results we desire. Her extensive experience as a Medical Practitioner and Business owner as well as her love of dealing one on one adds great value to the experience.

Jenny currently offers a limited number of coaching places to individuals. Programs are tailor made to suit and typically run for 8 to 12 weeks.

Each session is for an hour and can be either face to face or by telephone or Skype.

To find out more and how coaching can help you in relation to optimising your health to produce benefits in your business and personal lives you can contact Jenny at jenny@solutionsrfc.com

What does retirement or being retired mean to you?
Does it conjure up a particular image and is it one you wish to embrace for yourself?

We are all living longer. At the beginning of the 21st Century the average life expectancy for men was 55 years and for women 59 years. How scary is that! Many people in their 50′s today feel as if they are just approaching middle age, with the average life expectancy for Australian men now at 79 plus years and women 84years.

So, why is this relevant? Well, people used to “retire” ie stop participating in their income producing job and then have a couple of years at home not working, before dying. The average age of retirement is now 59 years which means possibly 20 years plus at home out of the work force.

Do you fancy hanging around at home during that time not doing terribly much apart from a bit of gardening and catching up with the grandkids?

Perhaps the concept of retirement is becoming redundant, as it seems as though many people who are in their 50′s and beyond are currently in excellent health, enjoy a comfortable lifestyle and want to continue to participate in some form of useful and enjoyable work or activity.

Many are starting new businesses, taking up new interests, volunteering in philanthropic or charity work or skimming around the world exploring new continents and cultures. The “R” word for them is irrelevant and for some, offensive!

Retirement is no longer just the carpet slippers and grey cardigan before death option but often an opportunity to go and do something new and completely different in our lives.
Our intentions and expectations of “retirement” have changed dramatically.

Which means of course that in order to keep doing what we want as we get older then maintaining and looking after our health both mentally and physically becomes increasingly important.

What we could get away with in our twenties and thirties, ie being a bit slack with exercise and diet, becomes a bit more obvious once we are in our forties. We start to notice we don’t have quite the stamina or flexibility we used to have. We may start to be aware of the excess weight we are carrying. Our Doctor may have advised us to watch our cholesterol level, or our blood pressure.

In our fifties we may have more evidence of degenerative diseases which start to impinge on our ability to do certain things and reminder us of the need to look after ourselves.

So, if our intention is to keep working, keeping playing, and keep having fun for our four score years and more, then there is no time like right now, to start putting into place our strategies and actions to maintain our healthy brain and healthy body.

Welcome to my new blog.
The aim of this blog is to share thoughts and ideas on what it takes to keep our brains working well.
There is a lot of information around on the importance of looking after our health and especially as we get older to start ensuring we maintain our health by exercising regularly and following a healthy diet.
Which is all fine if the aim is just to keep our bodies healthy. But what about our brains?
As we age, surely we need to be just as mindful of looking after and maintaining our brain.
What is it you envisage being able to do and participate in as you get older?
For many, it would seem that we expect to be able to continue doing pretty much what we already do, albeit at perhaps a slightly slower pace. We want to be able to play sport, exercise, travel, enjoy social activities with friends and families, maybe even continue on some form of business activity, and learn new skills. To do this we need more than a healthy body, we need a healthy brain too. And as the statistics point out to us we are all living longer. The down side is there is also a rapidly increasing incidence of Alzheimers and dementia.
Having a normal cholesterol level isn’t going to seem that important if I can no longer remember the names of my children.
There is a vast amount of information and knowledge that is growing daily on how we can take steps to ensure we can keep our brains active and working well and I look forward to sharing some of this with you.
So as we all live longer and enjoy healthier bodies, we need to ensure that we keep our brains healthy too.